Roycroft Bookshelf Reproductions

My parents have been looking for a new table for their family room for months, AND I had been looking for a new project to do! So I thought I’d surprise them with one of these Roycroft Bookshelfs. I found plans in sketchup on the internets and began about 2 weeks ago.

I really do love sketchup. Does anyone else do this? I find myself looking through my model and planning my next day’s tasks. I’ve even been able to avoid mistakes that I probably would have made on real wood had i not made the “practice” cuts, or “virtual” machine setups via the program. .

I was only going to make one, but decided to make 2 as an experiment. I wanted to see how much longer it would take to make that 2nd piece. As far as the cuts, I think it took only a fraction of the time. I made 3 jigs, and the setups for the mortises and tenons took up most of the time, so the second cuts were practically FREE. Sanding and finishing was a different story, as there aren’t really any short cuts…but I think it did take less time as it was an assembly line while sanding and finishing the parts. .But what it did do was get me organized. I’m sure most of you guys already know the benefits of this, but I labeled parts early and often so I knew which part went where and which direction it was oriented. No wasted time re-identifying parts…

So here they are… I think they came out great. The last picture is with my mom.

I design just about everything I make in SketchUp, so I know exactly where you’re coming from. Many a mistake has been caught prior to construction because of that. Though I find that sometimes I try to shortcut what I’ve done in the model and that ends up not working out how I’d like, but that’s just a product of my impatience or laziness.